A year of reckoning for Europe testing times for Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin as they begin their second terms in office major political events in China; continuing uncertainty in the Great Lakes region of Africa; a continuing question mark over the Middle East peace process; contrasts of wealth and poverty in the new economic models of Latin America; an election in Britain.
These are among the major developments for 1997 foreshadowed in the World Review published with this newspaper today. It is a stimulating agenda, up to a busy international calendar in the year come. Ireland has been more than usually exposed to it in 1996 by virtue of the Presidency of the European Union, which tomorrow is handed over to the Dutch government. This has been a rewarding experience for those directly involved, the success of which will rebound to this State's credit in years to come.
1997 will be a year of reckoning in Europe as its governments and peoples come to terms with the future peace, prosperity and institutional shape of the continent. Two enlargements dominate the agenda that of the European Union and that of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. The current EU InterGovernmental Conference, working on the basis of a draft treaty prepared by the Irish presidency, aims to complete its work in Amsterdam next June. It is crucially concerned with how to accommodate up to 27 member states in an enlarged Union by streamlining decision making. If the work is to be finished in time there will need to be far more intense political engagement by governments than has so far been in evidence.
They will be anxious to finish in good time both to prepare for decisions on participation in currency union in early 1998, as well as to avoid unwanted entanglements with national political agendas. There's the rub can the governments bring what seem to be increasingly sceptical publics along with them by demonstrating a conviction that the ambitious integration agenda is worth the sacrifices required? This is a problem not only for the British Conservatives but for the French and German governments too.
Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin will have to come to terms with the second enlargement, of NATO, ifs they are to maintain stable and cordial relations between their two great countries in 1997. The Russians are understandably concerned that NATO enlargement threatens their security, whereas the US is determined to push its allies into accepting it, albeit on the basis of a new security agreement with Russia. Russia and China have just concluded a new security pact; it underlines the former's Eurasian identity and serves to highlight a central fact of international affairs as we approach the 21st century the emergence of China as a key player. This year will see the reversion of Hong Kong to its sovereignty and important party and people's congresses which will chart its political future as a state containing one fifth of the world's population.
Other world regions continue to exhibit uneven economic and political performance. East, south east and west Asia are the most dynamic of them. In the Middle East, development hinges above all on whether the Israeli Palestinian peace process can survive. In Africa, attention focuses on the Great Lakes region and the future of Zaire. There is hope in the emergence of a more engaged African diplomacy. The perils of uneven development in Latin America have been highlighted by the recent events in Peru; but, again, there is hope in the opportunities for regional co operation exemplified by the Mercosur process involving Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.